Seeds from Italy News
Vol 7, # 1, Mar 2007
We publish four times a year (usually) and include information on all aspects of Italian vegetables, herbs and flowers: selecting, growing, harvesting and storing and cooking. We would be happy to receive and if space permits, publish your experiences in these areas.
If you have a friend who is interested in all things Italian (at least for vegetables, herbs & flowers, please feel free to forward this to them.
1. Privacy Policy
2. Order Shipping Times
3. Seeds from Italy Customer Results.
4. A message of appreciation to all customers.
5. Growing Fancy Radicchio radicchio the way they do in Italy.
6. What is this thing? Escarole
7. 2006 Trials: Escarole
8. Growing Tip. Using leaves to amend your soil. The easy way.
9. Customer Comments.
10. 2007 Summer Trials
11. What is in a name.
12. A Cookbook to Consider
13. Newsletter: subscribe or unsubscribe
The newsletter is on line. You can read it there and view photos of the various things mentioned below. If you want to read on line, go to:
http://growitalian.com/march_2007.htm
1. Privacy Policy. A number of people on their order forms asked me not to sell or divulge their personal information: address, telephone numbers, email addresses, etc. I want everyone to understand that I take privacy very seriously. I never disclose any customer information to anyone under any circumstances. I have been bothered by too many telemarketers, received too much junk email to do that to anyone else. I don't even keep credit card numbers: a number of customers who reordered and told me to use their credit card number on file were surprised when I told them I do not keep them on my computer, nor do I have access to them from the credit card authorizing service.
2. The crazy season is upon me. It is back to seven day weeks, backorders & the end of next day dispatch of orders. Right now I am about
five days behind but catching up. My apologies, but I am going at this as much as fifteen hours a day. It will get to you in time to plant. Most
of the backordered items are in & have gone out. The exceptions are
the red poppy, woodland strawberry, zucchini da fiori and scatalone tomato.
The packets were not printed on time so they never went out. They finally
arrived Friday the 23rd of February. They will be going out this
week.
3. Seeds from Italy Customer Results. Some customers send in photos I would like to share with you.
Tomatoes in the winter. Michael Volk lives in El Paso and is lucky enough to be able to grow tomatoes in the winter. He has a small greenhouse and kindly shared a photo of his Astro tomato growing in a pot (24 November). It is looking good.
Cucuzzi (Serpente of Sicily). The Serpent of Sicily is a pretty good tasting vegetable. Pick them small and cook them like zucchini
and they taste very good. The leaves are also darned good. However, if you let the fruit grow, they will get huge; they will get five feet or more. If you grow them on the ground, they curl in some pretty amazing shapes. However, grow them on a trellis so they hang down, and they will wind up looking like a very large green baseball bat. Joe Intocci who grows in Pennsylvania sent in these photos of cucuzzi growing over his arbor. Quite a conversation piece, he notes.
4. A message of appreciation to all customers. This will be my eighth year
doing Seeds from Italy. It started out as a hobby, got to be a part time
job, and for the last four years has been full time. I pretty much do
everything myself & do it the way I think is best: best for me, best
for you the customer, and best for the company I primarily work with, Franchi
Sementi of Bergamo, Italy. This means that I will remain a small company,
but that is how I want it. [I want to be the guy who answers the phone, or
at least the one who returns the call from the message you left].
I have been a very fortunate man. I have a job I love doing and have an enormous amount of fun [and I make a living at it] Two things have allowed me to do this. One is you, the customers. You are really nice folks [and of no small consequence buy a lot of seeds]. If something I have is not particularly good, you tell me and I listen. You tell your friends about Seeds from Italy; I spend a lot of money on advertising, yet I am positive most of my new customers come from referrals from satisfied customers. Customers tell me to look for specific varieties and they are usually correct when they tell me they are good and I should stock them. I have made a lot of friends over the past eight years. Many of you drop a note to Bill, not 'customer service' and that really means a lot for me.
The second thing that has allowed this to happen is the company I get most of
my seeds from, Franchi Sementi of Bergamo, Italy. They work really
hard to make sure I get what I need. They have been loyal all these years
and I have been loyal to them in return [I can not tell you how many offers I
have had from other companies]. They are good folks who are as passionate
about good product as I am. Best of all, they have the finest seeds in all
of Italy and stick with tried and true Italian varieties.
5. Growing fancy radicchio the way they do in Italy. This is based completely on some email conversations I had this past December with one of my favorite farmers. Tim Wilcox grows out in the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts (this is the only place in the state where you can dig down more than six inches and not find very big rocks). Tim has spent a lot of time in Italy and, as am I, he is passionate about things Italian. We were having an email exchange about something and he sent along this report along with some stunning photographs of the Treviso radicchio he grew in good old Massachusetts. This is
definitely the way to grow it, at least in areas with more severe winters. I put the description below together from two separate emails.
In brief, the radicchio was grown like this:
June 15 seeds sown in flats. July 15 transplanted to the field spaced 9-12"x18" for the rows..
(Direct seeding would probably yield a higher average final weight, but there's the added work of thinning and weeding.) Plants grow well with minimal fertility. Plants are allowed to grow until after a hard frost, with no special
treatment. Then they are dug up root and all, the dead outer leaves pared back, and formed into bunches of 15 plants. At this point in time (60-75 days from setting out transplants) the plant has not yet formed much of a head at all in the field (see
photo on upper left). They can be dug any time until the ground freezes. The roots are trimmed level, leaving about 4-6" at
least. The photo on the upper right is one of the plants cleaned of outer
leaves and the root trimmed. Then they are set in a bucket or washtub of water to the level of the root in utter
darkness for 2 weeks at 55° or ideally 3 weeks at 45°. (Our basement was 55° so the color was lighter than it could have been.) They do not cut the head, but just remove the outermost leaves and bunch the plants tightly together. This forces them to grow very compactly, and the
outer leaves shield the hearts from both light and rot. This is quite easy to do in the basement.
[See photo on bottom right] In Treviso they use these huge basins with running water, but it works well on a small scale like this[using a big bucket filled with water]. [When ready] they are trimmed of all outer rot and washed well. The unforced roots can be stored in a cold root cellar or refrigerator until needed. They have tardivo as late as April in Italy.
These are the final product. I was so impressed with this. Next year I am going to have to do this. My basement is perfect.
On the left is Farmer Tim doing the final cleaning of the
radicchio. These are what you get from the stuff in the tub. By the
way, Tim Wilcox is one of the folks I was thinking of when talking about how
much I appreciate how much customers have helped out. The tub of radicchio
on the left is the final product after cleaning. On the right is treviso
ready for the grill or for risotto or whatever you desire..
6. WHAT IS THIS VEGETABLE: ESCAROLE/ENDIVE. Escarole has been used in and around the Mediterranean Sea for thousands of years. It is an annual, slightly bitter, and comes in numerous forms. There is of course the common escarole you find in the supermarket (the closest Italian variety to this in looks at least is verde a cuore pienno (full green heart). However, in Italy at least, some escarole has big broad leaves & thick stems like the full green heart with color varying from dark green to light green to 'blond'. Other escaroles look like a small cardoon (cardoncella from Bari) and others look like open leaf cutting chicory (cento foglie). Some look like a romaine lettuce (cornetto bordeaux) These full leaf types are usually cooked, though they are really good in salad. There are also frilly leaf escaroles, normally referred to as endive. Most of them are blanched (somehow kept away from light so the center turns golden); To blanch them, they can be covered with a pail or pot, tied up, etc and some naturally blanch. While there are superfrilly escaroles (ricciutissima), most have larger leaves and thicker crunchier stems which are just outstanding in salad.
Growing escarole. Italian escarole or endive is really easy to grow. It prefers cool weather when it matures, so you do not want to be growing it when the temps are in the high 90's. Here in the Northeast, it is generally grown so that it matures in September/October. Some varieties such as Bubikopf show better resistance to heat and can be grown in warmer temperatures. Most escarole matures in 60 or so days. Italian varieties are quite large (a typical bionda or verde cuore pieno will get sixteen inches across as will the bubikopf. They should be spaced sixteen inches or so; even the endives get pretty large and should be spaced twelve inches. You can direct seed it or do it from four or five week transplants. It does not have any special requirements other than a reasonably fertile soil & adequate water. Once harvested, it will store for weeks in a
refrigerator. It will take a frost, though suffers from a heavy freeze (say below 24F or so). If you provide it with some protection, it will hold in the garden well after the first frost.
Cooking escarole. Escarole is one of my favorite vegetables and the Italian varieties are special favorites since they tend to be much less bitter than what you find in an American supermarket. It is a natural with beans (cook your favorite recipe for beans & about 20 minutes before things are ready, add a head of cut up escarole. Chicken soup, of course, (especially chicken soup with the little meat balls) suffers greatly if made without escarole. You can stuff it (typical ingredients are raisins, caper,
anchovy, perhaps some bread crumbs, etc) then tie it and slowly cook it in olive oil; my aunt used to cook escarole with garlic & olive oil & then use it to stuff a 'pie'. Endive in salad is just a treat.
I have ten or eleven escaroles/endives and recommend you try at least one this fall.
7. 2006 Trials: Escarole Trials. Last year I did some escarole and endive trials and the results were interesting.
Varieties trialed included Bubikopf, Bionda a cuore pieno, cento foglie & cardoncella; for endives I trialed Louviers (a French heirloom variety and ricciutissima, a very fine leaf type)
I started the escarole seed in six packs on June 24th; it went out to the garden on the 16th of July. Spacing was 14" and was not enough. 16" would have been better. They were ready to harvest in the middle of September & held well until at pretty much the end of November. We had a pretty mild fall & they did fine until temperatures fell into the low twenties. The endive were direct seeded in mid July & thinned to eight inches. That would be fine for the ricciutissima, though the Louvier would have been better with wider spacing. However, because it was pretty close together, it grew somewhat upright and really self-blanched well.
You can see from the photos that the four escarole varieties, although similar in taste, look very different.
These photos were taken before the escarole completely matured. They
became a lot larger and with the endive, the hearts became very yellow.
Maybe next year I will have some of them when completely mature.
The bionda cuore pieno is a light green and after I took the photos, they became even lighter. Big heads, thick stems, mild taste.
The bubikopf is somewhat darker green, though still pretty light colored. Stems may have been a bit thicker than bionda, though not
all that much. The heads were definitely heavier. It too had pretty mild taste and was amazing with cooked shell beans. It has a reputation of doing better in heat than most escaroles. It is probably a five or six days earlier.
Cento foglie. This variety is from Bari and I did not know what to expect of this. It grows pretty much like an open leaf cutting chicory or lettuce, though it got twelve inches or so across. It cooks up well, though it also makes a really good salad green. It would be very nice grown just for salad mix (sow heavily in a bed and cut it when it is five or six inches high.
Cardoncella. This is another variety from Bari & I did not know what to expect. It definitely grows like a 'little cardoon'
[cardoncella). The leaves get to be twelve to 14 inches long and it kind of has a center stem from which other clusters of leaves grow. The bottoms of the stem are fairly thick & very crunchy. It too was excellent cooked and also good for salad. I grew some of it in a bed of Franchi endive mix and it made a great salad green.
So, which one to choose. Try them all. They are all fun. If you mostly cook your escarole, probably you are better off with the bubikopf, bionda or verde cuore pieno or perhaps cardoncella. If you also use it for salads, perhaps cento foglie is more appropriate.
As for the endives, they were ready in 50 days or so. Ricciutissima was a few days earlier and definitely is the extra fine frisee type you find in high end stores for seven dollars a pound. It has very fine stems and tiny leaves. It is naturally light and also blanches very well. Taste is very mild; I would have preferred a crunchier texture, but that is a personal preference. Louviers is a much bigger plant with thicker stems and naturally blanched to a golden
yellow. It was very pretty. It also made a really good salad and lasted until Thanksgiving. You can not go wrong with either of these, or one the other two Franchi brand endives which I reviewed years ago (riccia pancalieri a costa bianca or cuor d'oro (golden heart).
Louviers is on the left. Ricciutissima is on the right.
8. Growing Tips. Everyone extols the benefits of using leaves to amend your soil. Leaves are full of micro nutrients and also lighten up your soil. The trick, of course, is getting them in shape to use. If you have leaves like I do (oak & norway maple) which are large, rather than break down, they just sit around and mat up. I used to just pile them in a corner, but if you have
a lot trees like me, you get some mighty big piles. Maybe in four years they are usable. However, if you have a good lawnmower (preferably a riding lawnmower) you can make them immediately available for use.
This is what I do and it works very well. I rake my leaves out of the various nooks and crannies where I can not get a mower. I then set my riding mower on high and run over the leaves, chopping them up and blowing them into a windrow ten feet or so across. I then go over the windrow two or three more times, progressively lowering the height of the mower deck. When I am finished I have a long row of munched leaves perhaps three feet wide.
In my garden, in those areas where I am going to plant tomatoes or other things which would benefit by a layer of mulch, I prepare those rows, turning over the soil, removing debris from the previous year, etc. I then rake my leaves onto a tarp, carry them over to the garden and spread about a four or five inch layer on the beds for next year. Next spring, when I transplant tomatoes & peppers, I just pull aside the mulch & put the plant in. By the end of the summer, the worms have incorporated every bit of leaf material into the soil.
Meanwhile, back on the lawn where I did my leaf munching, there is a very fine layer of leaf material (from the size of a speck of dust to perhaps 1/2 inch which got through the rake tines. For these, I put the bagger on the mower, and pick up the fine material into the bagger. This goes on my garlic and makes a perfect mulch for them.
Doing this is obviously easiest with a riding mower, but if you had smaller amounts, you could probably use a regular rotary mower. Your garden soil will love it.
9. Reader Comments. Growing vegetables should always be fun & it is nice if there is a little surprise. Sounds like Franchi seeds did both for Blayne & Anne Olsen of Monroe, NC They wrote me this note: "Last year my wife's new associates husband never stopped talking about you and the fact that he couldn't find cima de rapa in the south . Since I didn't want to be responsible for his death by starvation I ordered and planted a 4' by 36' bed of it. I'll never plant that much again. It all
sprouted and I took him trunk loads. Then I ordered tomatoes, peppers and a few other things. Everything did well and especially the Romanesco Precoce. That nutty flavor was out of this world and it over wintered beautifully. I think it should be required eating for all of your customers, Thanks for what you do.
10. Pepper & Bean Trials. Looking for participants. I am looking for people who would like to participate in a summer hot pepper trial. The primary goal is to try and obtain some basic information on just exactly what the various varieties I have taste like, how they grow, their size, etc. The information I have received from Italy is very confusing and I thought this was the best way to get the real scoop. You do not have to be a professional grower, but you need to have some experience starting seeds, especially peppers which are a bit trickier than many.
For varieties, I plan to do: calabrese (ex. baccio satana, ex cilegia from Franchi Sementi); calabrese from fuscello tessoro [I think they are different]; Red Cherry from Franchi Sementi; Topepo Rosso Piccante & San Salavtore piccante, both from Fuscello Tessoro.
Bean Trial. This year I have some new pole beans that sound very interesting. I have Smeraldo & Garrafal Oro. Both have been requested numerous times by customers who have eaten them in Europe and say they are amazing beans. I will also include supermarconi which for years has been my standard as a really good eating bean.
Will send out 5-10 seeds for each variety. Each participant will grow each variety out keeping notes on the trial sheet provided. If possible, they would take some photos with a digital camera. We can post the results up on the website in the fall. This was a lot of fun last year.
So, if you are interested in participating, send an email to seeds@growitalian.com Please include your mailing address. Specify which trial you want to participate in. I will try and get these out by the middle of March. Please select only one trial.
11. What is in a name. Sometimes I get a bit crazy with the naming
practices of Italian seed companies and I know customers are often
confused. It should be simple since there is an official name for every
seed variety in Italy and that official name is on the government registry of
seeds: http://www.sementi.it/registri_varietali/Ortive_05.pdf
Furthermore, the official name must appear on the seed packet (there are
exceptions, however, for smaller regional seed companies). However, the
reality is a bit different.
Take for example ciliegia piccante. Franchi Sementi used to call it Baccio Satana (satan's kiss) on the front of the pack, but had the official name, which is ciliegia piccante, on the back. Now they call it cilegia piccante on both front & back. OK. That is less confusing. They have a new pepper they call Calabrese (on the front) and tondo piccante calabrese on the back. However, there is no such name on the seed registry; furthermore, the picture on the pack is the same as ciliegia and the item number of the pepper on the back of the pack is the same as last years cilegia piccante? So what is it. I am no longer sure. I buy the same seed variety from another company in Bari & they call it piccante calabrese on the back; different picture than Franchi uses? Maybe the summer trials will unravel this mystery.
So why is this? There are a number of factors involved. One is obviously a bit of marketing; Satan's Kiss sounds like a really hot pepper; ciliegia is a bit less cool a name & the same thing every other seed company has. Another source of problems are bureaucratic rules or a bureaucratic screwup. Franchi had a really outstanding eggplant, Gitana. It was registered, but when they did the registration someone forgot to mention that it was a F1 hybrid(or the government folks left it off-my Italian is not terrific & I missed some of the explanation). It was impossible to modify the listing, so they had to reregister it, but had to use a different name because there was already an Eggplant Gitana. The end result is that Gitana is now Linda.
My favorite is Genovese Basil. It has been known as that for years; no longer. This year it is basil Italiano Classico. Why? It is a bit complicated, but the basis is the European rule which allow countries (now EU wide) to designate that certain agricultural products must be produced in a certain geographic region and sometimes must use specific raw materials and techniques. Classic examples are Parma Ham, Champagne, etc. A group of seed producers in the Genoa region were able to get a "Geographical Indication" for genovese basil seed (the first time this ever happened with agricultural seed). Now, in order for a company to label genovese basil seed as 'Genovese", it must have been produced in the region around Genoa. However, most genovese basil seed is grown in the traditional seed growing regions of Le Marche & Bari. There is not enough seed produced in Genoa to supply demand. Result. Unless the seed is grown in Genoa, it is called Italiano Classico. Things will only get worse.
So, when you are confused and are thinking bad things about me,
blame the bureaucrats of Italy and the European Union.
12. A cookbook to consider.
Joe Famularo, A cook's Tour of Italy.HP Books, 2005. This is a really nice cook book and a fun read. There are recipes from all around Italy, some from restaurants, some from just plain folks. They look pretty authentic and his suggestions for substitutions for things you just can not get here are good. You really get a feel for the regional diversity in Italy. I am going to have some fun sampling some of the recipes. There is a great sounding recipe from Abruzzo for polanta with cima di rapa & sausage & cheese; why didn't my mother ever do that one. I think I will buy this book.
13. Newsletter: subscribe/unsubscribe. This newsletter is sent out to all people who requested that they be added to the subscription list.
It is a double opt in newsletter. You have to confirm a
subscription.
If you want to unsubscribe, just click on this url: http://www.growitalian.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=GrowItalian&e=seeds@growitalian.com&p=9705954 If this does not work, just cut & paste it into your browser. If it still does not work, then drop me a note at
seeds@growitalian.com I will unsubscribe manually.
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Good growing and may your garden be woodchuck & deer free.
Bill McKay